Good enclosure for 2TB drive? Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD20EARSI have a Mac Mini and am looking to add this 2TB WD drive to my system. Amazon doesn't list the size limits for various external enclosures, so I'm hoping that others here who have purchased this WD20EARS can tell me about the external enclosure that has worked for you. Bonus points if it's actively cooled by a fan! =) Good enclosure for 2TB drive? Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD20EARSI have a Mac Mini and am looking to add this 2TB WD... » Read More Good enclosure for 2TB drive? Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD20EARSI have a Mac Mini and am looking to add this 2TB WD drive to my system. Amazon doesn't list the size limits for various external enclosures, so I'm hoping that others here who have purchased this WD20EARS can tell me about the external enclosure that has worked for you. Bonus points if it's actively cooled by a fan! =) « Show Less
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A Drobo is crazy overkill for enclosing a single SATA drive. You should be able to find an SATA enclosure with a fan for about 1/10 of the cost of the Drobo.
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Check out on of the Drobo enclosures. Drobo Beyond Raid 4-Bay USB 2.0/FireWire 800 SATA 6GB/S Storage Array with Drobo PC Backup DR04DD10
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It's the size of a standard 3.5" hard drive, and the power dissipation is similar or lower than other 3.5" hard drives. Mine are in a Cooler Master 4 in 3 HDD Module Device - (STB-3T4-E3-GP), inside a Cooler Master Centurion 590 ATX Mid Tower Case Black - (RC-590-KKN1-GP), but there's a ton of external SATA enclosures that should work with this drive. Choose based on what interfaces you need (SATA, USB, Firewire). Most important, the WD20EARS needs to have 4kB blocks, properly aligned in your file system to perform efficiently. It's the size of a standard 3.5" hard drive, and the power dissipation is similar or lower than other 3.5" hard drives. Mine are in a Cooler Master 4 in 3 HDD Module Device - (STB-3T4-E3-GP), inside a Cooler Master Centurion 590 ATX Mid Tower Case Black - (RC-590-KKN1-GP), but there's a ton of external SATA enclosures that should work with this drive. Choose based on what interfaces you need (SATA, USB, Firewire). Most important, the WD20EARS needs to have 4kB... » Read More It's the size of a standard 3.5" hard drive, and the power dissipation is similar or lower than other 3.5" hard drives. Mine are in a Cooler Master 4 in 3 HDD Module Device - (STB-3T4-E3-GP), inside a Cooler Master Centurion 590 ATX Mid Tower Case Black - (RC-590-KKN1-GP), but there's a ton of external SATA enclosures that should work with this drive. Choose based on what interfaces you need (SATA, USB, Firewire). Most important, the WD20EARS needs to have 4kB blocks, properly aligned in your file system to perform efficiently. « Show Less
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I have an iMac 24 (2008) and iMac27 (2011) ... and am trying to initialize this drive on either, and the systems only seem to see 1.8TB - not 4TB. The website that they direct you to is very cagey on this - the drives say there is not problem, but there is an asterisk that says you may only be able to access 2tb of the drive. I'm wondering if you ever got this working. I am trying to install the drive in a box on the Firewire 400 and 800 channels though ... not sure if the SATA interface would be any better. This is kind of nonsense ... one would think they not want to sell these drives to people who cannot use them and have to return them for a refund ... but? Did you get your drive installed? By the way I just wonder what the people who respond to this that have no idea are trying to accomplish by that? Kind of silly wasting everyone's and their own time?
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The manufacturer claims 2TB drives work. Unofficial reports claim 3TB drives work if they don't draw too much power. The other thing is that some of the 6TB drives have unusual screw hole placements. You can make that work with a little DIY, but for the average computer user, power tools and computers do not go together well. I'd look for a more modern enclosure, personally. This one's a little long in the tooth and I did go through two of them in about four years.
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Kinda prefer hard drive docking stations actually. Especially ones straight up and down. Easier on the motor. One I'm using is Vantec e-sata in white. Think it only goes to 3TB so when I go to 4 TB I gotta look for a new one. I mostly prefer it because I can stick a 3-4 inch mini fan behind it if it gets too warm. And cases don't do much for heat dissipation even the ones that are supposed to. Only one that did they don't make anymore :(
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I've chosen Western Digital because of reliability. I've owned 4 WD drives: An 80GB, a 160GB, a 500GB, and this 1TB, and haven't had one of them fail on me. But as another user stated, WD sends just the drive itself. You'll have to download software, find screws, etc
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I installed a 2TB Western Digital internal drive and it works just fine. You can transfer files from your main PC onto this internal drive with the supplied cable that comes with this unit. My set up works great
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What is the RPM for Western Digital 1.5 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD10EADS? Is it 5400 or 7200 RPM?
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You need to determine the "specs" on the current HD in your Mac.....obviously the one critical element is that your current HD is 2.5 Inch size versus 3.5 Inch that is used in most desktops....I am not familiar with Macs since this Western Digital went into a Compaq running Win7. The drive is superb and the price on Amazon the most competitive around. Hope this helps.
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I tested it with two different 4TB drives: the WD Red 40EFRX and the WD RE WD4000FYYZ. First the Red: this model has a design flaw which causes it to load/unload the heads continuously, basically grinding the drive down to an early death. Other than that minor inconvenience, the Red works fine. The WD4000FYYZ: this drive generates a lot of heat and should not be used in an enclosure that doesn't have a fan. Other than that, it works fine as well.
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I'm believe you're confusing the 2.5" HD enclosures and external HD with the 3.5" ones. 2.5" are powered only by USB where as the latter require use of the included AC adapter. 1) I believe any decreased performance would be due to the drive's quality (manufacturer) and how often the drive it's defragmented. In any case they should be minute. 2) It wouldn't seem likely the other USB devices be sluggish unless perhaps your using multiple tasks with a slow CPU, not enough RAM, low PSU, etc. 3) Answered above.
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I am not an expert. I believe any Sata 2.5" hard drive should work. I have purchased several WD HDDs and Toshiba HDDs (2 of each) and they are all working perfectly. I use them for external hard drive storage and daily use. You might try to replace wit a Toshiba (but you surely can use either) as Toshiba is what Mac seems to use. The most important thing though is that its Sata 2.5"
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They REFUSE to state it! Slimy! From the WD support site: Q: "What kind of hard drive is inside a Western Digital external product?" A: "We can only guarantee drive capacity. We cannot guarantee a particular internal hard drive model, data interface, rotational speed, or cache size in the external hard drive enclosure." http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1704/p/209,488/session/L3RpbWUvMTQ0MDkyMTE3NC9zaWQvX1REbVRidm0%3D
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Assuming you mean "capacity" and not "physical size", I don't think so. I picked this up from the store, and returned it the next day after it failed to work with a 3TB WD Caviar Green drive, though it worked fine with a 1TB version of the same drive. I never did any additional research, so I don't know for sure, but it's probably limited to 2TB hdds, like most of the older external enclosures I've come across.
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I Don't believe there is a drive size (as in number of Gigs) limitation . That pretty much relates to most all external drive enclodures. I DO reccomend (as with this model) that it have at least one fan for cooling. Currently I hace a 2TB drive in this particular model ,and have had No issues to date.Hope that helps (someone anyway) LOL HappyPuting. ;-)
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I am using 2.5" WD Blue's. Seem to be working fine. My issue with the Drobo Mini is I use it with a Mac Mini and the drives won't hibernate. I have the setting in the Drobo dashboard checked. I have seen comments in the Apple forums that this is an issue with Mavericks and Firewire but nothing about Lightning connections. This may be a deal breaker for me.
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Amazon have been sending me the WD20EARS-00MVWB0!If you do buy it, please buy it thru my Amazon Store, its the same price and I get a small kickback from the sale.http://astore.amazon.com/brisperpag-20/detail/B002ZCXK0IGreat drive btw, use this for my main data partition and for an external backup drive on many servers.
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From WD FAQ: We can only guarantee drive capacity. We cannot guarantee a particular internal hard drive model, data interface, rotational speed, or cache size in the external hard drive enclosure. With the exception of Thunderbolt, eSATA and USB 3.0 external hard drives, USB 2.0 and Firewire 400/800 have yet to approach the transfer rates of the internal hard drives we use in our external enclosures